Honorary Oscar: Belated Gifts For Hayao Miyazaki

Of Saturday night's many wonderful moments at the Academy's 6th annual Governors Awards, near the top would have to be seeing Hayao Miyazaki accept his Honorary Oscar.

It was a rare US appearance for the legendary Japanese animator, who was not on hand at the 2003 Academy Awards to accept his competitive prize for "Spirited Away."

Given the rarity of such an appearance from the master filmmaker, it seemed worth it to pass along the video of his brief acceptance speech.

Often referred to as the "Walt Disney of Japan," Miyazaki has directed, written, animated, and produced more than 20 films over the course of his career. These include My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997), and Spirited Away (2001).

Spirited Away took in $330 million at the box office and went on to become the highest grossing film in Japan and earned the filmmaker an Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards.

By the way, the announcement of the award coincides with news of the filmmaker's retirement, making The Wind Rises (2013) his final feature film.

“I really felt that this was the maximum that I could give to produce an animated film,” Miyazaki told Buzzfeed in February after announcing his retirement for the second time in his long career.

“The work of animation is building up bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar. I felt I wouldn’t be able to put [up] another brick.”

At age 73, Hayao Miyazaki is still capable of surprises. He has an atelier, just behind the main Studio Ghibli building, on a narrow and quiet street in a suburb of Tokyo.

The esteemed animator talked about his retirement and future plans in a recent interview.

"I intend to work until the day I die. I retired from feature-length films but not from animation. Self-indulgent animation (laughs). They’re fun to do. They’re short so it’s less stressful."